Nick and Harmony both turned-stared at me. With the same speed he’d shown earlier, Nick was back at her side, his fingers around her wrist, dragging her through the rubble that littered the floor.

I launched myself at him, landed on his back in a move driven by nothing except sheer outrage and passion. My arm wrapped around his neck and I squeezed, wished for the strength to pop his head off and send it rolling across the floor. Wanted to stand over his body and kick it until it stopped moving, until not even a reflexive death twitch was left. Rage-hot, cold all-encompassing-dropped over me until I didn’t know my own name, didn’t even know why I needed to kill this boy, just that I did.

I was an Amazon, and I was going to make him pay.

I felt him shift in my arms, heard his clothing tear as his body grew. Suddenly he slipped from my hold, my fingers running over fur. Then he stood facing me…not Nick, the skinny boy, but Tiger prowling, snarling, warning me to get away from his prey.

Harmony gasped. I didn’t look down at her, just gestured behind me, telling her to get out. For the first time in her life she obeyed me without argument.

Tiger roared as she ran, leapt toward me…and Harmony. A wall of air released from my lungs forced him back, sent him sliding across the floor. He clawed at linoleum, his claws gouging, a growl rumbling from his chest.

He stood, paced left, then right, watching me, deciding his next attack. I didn’t care. I reveled in his indecision, knew that every minute he wasted, Harmony was getting farther away. As long as she was safe, I could take my time deciding how to kill him, die in the process if need be. All that mattered was that my daughter had left.

“Mom?”

I froze, didn’t look, but didn’t have to. I knew the voice, knew the title, and knew by the tiger’s intent stare that Harmony was standing behind me.

“Get out,” I ordered, slashing my hand and releasing more wind to send a bookshelf smashing to the ground, forcing Tiger to jump backward out of its way.

“Makis. He gave me something.” She shoved something cold and smooth into my hand. I glanced down, just long enough to see a double-faced totem, male on one side, female on the other. Both carrying a child and spear. At the feet of each sat a bird and a chisel. Amazons and their sons, both hearth-keepers, warriors, priestesses, and artisans. The imagery wasn’t lost on me, but it offered nothing either. I tossed the stone to the side.

“Get home or call Bubbe and Mother, anything. Just get out of here. Now.” I felt like I was screaming, but couldn’t be, my teeth were clenched too tightly.

Harmony stepped around me, bent to retrieve the totem. A tentacle, long and coral in color, wrapped around her, jerked her across the floor. I glanced up, to where Tiger had been. He was gone and in his place was the third givnomai, not one used by many, Octopus.

The creature pulled her closer until she was almost engulfed in his body. She went limp, her arms and legs falling loosely toward the floor.

Chapter Twenty-seven

I grabbed a palette knife from the mess on the floor, and raced toward the monster, plunged the dull blade into what I guessed was his head, or neck. The creature heaved, dropping my daughter. I pulled back, ready to sink the weapon in again, but it slapped me to the side, sent me spinning and sliding like I’d sent Tiger a few minutes earlier.

My side rammed into a file cabinet and I scrambled back to my feet, searched frantically in my mind for a spell or weapon that would force the thing to release my daughter. As my crazed gaze danced back to Octopus, I saw something…the notebook Nick had carried. Octopus held it too, one tentacle caressing it. Getting strength from it, I guessed.

I leapt again, this time aiming not for the center of the beast, but the far tip of one tentacle-for the notebook that I guessed held three dead Amazons’ givnomais. Givnomais that Nick was somehow leeching of power. My foot on the corner of the notebook, I jabbed the knife into coral flesh and shoved backward with my foot. The tentacle rose, reaching for me, and the notebook went flying. I dropped and rolled, evading Octopus’s reach, then belly-crawled toward the notebook that had slid beneath a shelf. Behind me I heard a thump. I glanced over my shoulder, saw my daughter sprawled on the floor, pale and lifeless. Octopus was gone, but Nick, naked and bleeding, was rising to his feet.

I jerked the notebook free, held it to my chest, and stared at the bleeding boy.

“Give it to me,” he said.

“Don’t,” a voice beside me spoke. Makis. He was slumped in his wheelchair, but the tires spun, moving him forward.

I didn’t care what either of them wanted, only that Harmony was all right. As if reading my mind, Nick looped his arm around her waist, pulled her up beside him. “She’s alive. I wouldn’t kill her. Not like this. I never intended to hurt her anyway. Not until you showed up, attacked me.”

He frowned, his eyes pulling down like a confused little boy. “Why are you fighting me? I thought you understood.”

Harmony stirred, or was it just her body swaying, an illusion of life?

Still, my grip on the notebook loosened; the tightness in my chest lessened. “Understood what?”

With Harmony so close, within his grasp, I couldn’t move too fast, wasn’t even sure what to do with the notebook now that I had it. If I destroyed the pages, set them on fire, or shredded them into the wind, what would happen to the girls’ spirits? Would they always be trapped between two worlds?

“What I was doing. Why it was right.” Something flashed in his hand and he held a knife-short-bladed and sharp, not at all like the dull tool I’d plunged into the octopus’s neck. “The Amazons threw me out like trash-killed your son with no more thought than they’d give to stomping on a roach. Even him-” He jerked his head toward Makis. “Look what they did to him. But he was weak, wanted to go back to them, after everything. Thousands of years of disrespect, pain, death, and he wants to blend with them. Can you believe that?” His lip curled. “But you, you did what no other Amazon had. You walked away. That’s why I thought you’d understand. Why I’ve watched you for so long, tried to please you.” He shook his head. The knife glimmered. “I brought you gifts. Then I tried to warn the others off-to get them to leave you alone. I even offered you their queen, but you turned her down. I tried again. I knew Pisto would please you. She fought against us, was everything we’re trying to stop. Why aren’t you happy?

“Is it because I didn’t join you at the shop? I couldn’t. I saw Dana, knew she wouldn’t understand. But I didn’t leave you-was there in my dog form. I wasn’t rejecting you. Can’t you see that?” He lifted his arm, caused Harmony’s weight to sway.

Makis wheeled forward, not far, just an inch. He wiggled a finger, pointing to the ground where the totem he’d given Harmony lay.

I placed my hand over it, slid it closer. Trapped inside my closed fingers, the figure began to throb like a tiny beating heart. I clenched it tighter, tried to keep the surprise from showing on my face.

“Harmony,” Makis said low, but Nick still heard.

“I said she’s okay. I don’t want to hurt her. I love her-like Dana. Dana’s happy now, right?” He looked at me. I couldn’t reply. “That’s the problem with the sons. They weren’t selective. They took any Amazon they could.”

I swallowed the saliva that seemed to have pooled in my mouth, the nausea his words created.

Makis gestured again; this time he leaned forward. Hidden in his chair, behind his back, was a throwing knife. I shook my head. Harmony was too close.

Makis shifted his gaze to the notebook, then Nick. My fingers slid in between pages and cover, brushed over something warm and alive-skin. I shuddered, then forced my fingers back to the spot, recognized the power pulsing there-a givnomai, Pisto’s. Feeling as if I might retch, I jerked the book open, yanked the pages free of the binding, and tossed them in the air.